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Adwan
The Adwanic language, (English: Adwan, French: Adouanne, Spanish: Aduána, Adwan: Aðẃana) is an inflecting, isolating language. It is the language of the Adwanic People, or the Chiðaùm Aðẃany. Features: *Adwan is a fusionally synthetic language. This means that words change depending on their usage (I am would be það, yet you are could either be þus or þuš, depending on the number). *Adwan also expresses a very agglutinative nature when it comes to verbs, which conjugated by stringing affixes together. *Verbs in Adwan are conjugated to four persons, two numbers, three tenses, three aspects, four voices, four moods and three polarities. *Adwan lacks auxilliary verbs and modal verbs, instead making extensive use of affixes to change modality, aspect, tense, mood and voice. *Adwan is a pro-drop language; the person is conjugated into the verb. *Adwan declines nouns for number, and grammatical case. Gender is lost in most nouns, though some can be declined for gender by adding respective affixes. *Adwan has 7 cases; nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative and vocative, and 2 numbers; singular and plural. *Adwan experiences 5 kinds of phonetic mutations: gemination, nasalization, aspirative lenition, ablaut, and palatalization. *Loanwords to Adwan are generally rare; about 5-15% of Adwan's vocabulary is shared with other European languages (though something like mesa is found in Spanish, mesa in Adwan means island, while mesa in Spanish means table). *Adwan is syllable timed; stress is always put on the penultimate syllable unless stated otherwise (acute accents over vowels show irregular stress rules, which are incredibly common). Phonology Adwan empoys 29 consonants and 8 vowels (with a numerous amount of diphthong combinations). Consonants *The phoneme /b/ does not exist in Adwan. *The phoneme /ɬ/ is not an allophone of /l/ *The phoneme /ʔ/ is not represented in writing, nor does it have any significant effect (it is purely dialectical). *The phoneme /ʝ/ is an allophone of /j/. *The phoneme /ɰ/ is an allophone of /ɣ/. *Bilabial plosives (‹p›), palatal approximants (‹j› ‹ɥ›), velar fricatives (‹h›), velar approximants (‹w›), and alveolar lateral fricatives (‹ɬ›) can never end a word. Phonotactics Syllables in Adwan follow a relatively simple set of rules in formation. Usually, they follow a CV pattern, though it is not uncommon to see CCV, CCCV, and CCVCC. Typically, the generalized rule for syllables in Adwan is ©©©V©©©. Note, diphthongs are considered''' one''' vowel, and ch is considered one consonant. Alphabet The Adwanic alphabet consists of 36 letters: A C Č D Ð Ď E F G Ğ H CH I J K L Ł M N Ň O Ö P R Þ S Š T U Ü V W Ẃ Y Z Ž Ż Consonant-wise, Adwan is completely phonemic. For the most part, everything is written how it is sounded out, in Adwan. The Adwanic alphabet does, however, lack a few things: The letters Bb, Qq, and Xx do not exist in Adwan, as the phoneme /b/ doesn't exist in ANY Adwanic word, and Qq is either transcribed as "kw" or "k", while Xx is transcribed "ks", "z", or "gz". Latin Alphabet Extensions Adwan employs 14 letters that are foreign to the basic Latin alphabet. These letters are considered letters on their own, rather than letters with diacritics. *‹Č,č› represents the phoneme ‹tʃ›, as in the English word ch'ocolate. *‹Ð,ð› represents the phoneme ‹ð›, as in the English word th'erefore.'' *‹Ď,ď› represents the phoneme ‹dʒ›, as in the English word ''j'am. *‹Ğ,ğ› represents the phoneme ‹ɣ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is a ‹g›, but smoother and in the back of the throat, almost like a ‹g› version of ‹x›; it is represented as in the Greek word γάλα. *‹Ł,ł› represents the phoneme ‹ɬ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is almost like saying ‹š› and ‹l› together but quickly, or blowing while your tongue is curled back. It is represented as in the Welsh word 'll'oyd. *‹Ň,ň› represents the phoneme ‹ŋ›, as in the English word si'ng. Note that the ‹g› isn't pronounced, and the ‘n‘ is velarized. *‹Ö,ö› represents the phoneme ‹ø›, which doesn't exist in English. The closest sound would be the ou in w'''ou'ld'', only a bit higher. It is represented as in the French word p'''eu', or the Norwegian word ''s'ø't''. *‹Š,š› represents the phoneme ‹ʃ›, as in the English word ''ca'sh'.'' *‹Ü,ü› represents the phoneme ‹y›, which doesn't exist in English. Say ''ee and round your lips as if saying ‹ö›. It is represented as in the French word t'''u. *‹Ẃ,ẃ› represents the phoneme ‹ɥ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is like a ‹j› + ‹w› sound (y + w for non-IPA users). It is represented as is in the French word l'''u'i.'' *‹Ž,ž› represents the phoneme ‹ʒ›, as in the English word vi'si'on, or as in the French word ''j'e. *‹Ż,ż› represents the phoneme ‹dz›, as in the English word car'ds'. '' Acute Accent; Stress Adwan adds acute accents (and double acute accents to all vowels with umlauts) to all vowels to add stress if the stress isn't on the penultimate syllable. *‹Á,á› represents stress on the ‹a›. *‹É,é› represents stress on the ‹e›. *‹Í,í› represents stress on the ‹i›. *‹Ó,ó› represents stress on the ‹o›. *‹Ő,ő› represents stress on the ‹ö›. *‹Ú,ú› represents stress on the ‹u›. *‹Ű,ű› represents stress on the ‹ü›. *‹Ý,ý› represents stress on the ‹y›. Grave Accents; Diphthong Formation Apart from acute accents, hačeks, grave accents are also added to vowels that create diphthongs. As Adwan is a phonemic language, double vowel clusters do '''not '''form diphthongs, but are pronounced each. A vowel cluster that has the second vowel with a grave accent creates the diphthong. *‹À,à› #‹Eà, eà›; represents the sound in the word ''c'a'n'', stressed to sound slightly country. *‹È,è› #‹Iè, iè› represents another rounded sound, like ‹ià›. It sounds like a northern Norwegian "e", or like the word "kit", rather like "Kih-et", said in one syllable. *‹Ì,ì› #‹Aì, aì›; aɪ̯; represents the sound in ''k'i'te, or eye''. ' #‹Eì, eì›; eɪ̯; represents the sound in ''c'a'ke, or f'''a'te.'' #‹Öì, öì›; øɪ̯; represents the sound of ‹ö› plus ‹y› or ‹i›. #‹Uì, uì›; uɪ̯; represents the sound in the Spanish word m'''uy'. It's a combination of "oo" and "ee", for non-IPA readers. *‹Ù,ù› #‹Aù, aù›; represents the ''ow sound in cow. #‹Eù, eù›; represents the eu sound in the Spanish word Europa. Like ew but with an open "e" rather than "i". #‹Iù, iù›; represents the sound in English ew in one syllable. #‹Où, où›; represents the o''' sound in the English word fl'oa'''t. '' Ě, the silent one Other than acute and grave accents, vowels don't have any other diacritics, except for ‹e›. The letter "e" can also have a háček added to it, though the use in this is quite confusing. Quite literally, ‹ě› is what seems to be a "decision" letter, for while every other letter in Adwan is pronounced -- as Adwan is a phonemic language -- the ‹ě› can either be silent or pronounced. The letter ‹ě› has one use. *The first main usage is with verb affixes. With the formation of verb affixes, the syllables grow in size and many times, the stress falls upon the e's that separate affixes from having potentially scary consonant clusters. ‹ě›, though it is pronounced the same as a regular old ‹e›, is put in between affixes to not only separate them orthographically, but to indicate that the ‹e› is optional. With verb affixes, if the speaker can pronounce the affixes without the separating ‹e›, then they can, but the ‹ě› is inserted to show that, indeed, an ‹e› can be pronounced. However, the ‹ě› does '''not appear between an affix that starts with a consonant while the preceding letter is a vowel. #Excerpt: "...They should act towards one another..." --> "Dwaþryšěğam". The verb affix -ğam indicates the verb is in the middle voice (and the person is plural). For many, -š- and -ğ- together are not that hard to pronounce, but it makes it easier to have the option, which is where -ě- comes in. Orthography Adwan, for the most part, is quite a phonemic language, though it does carry its own writing rules. Mainly everything is written as it is pronounced, and everything is pronounced as it is written. Diphthongs even have special diacritics that show they're diphthongs, because vowel clusters are separately pronounced. One thing Adwan does have, however, is gemination. Gemination in Adwan can be quite tricky, for just because a consonant is doubled, doesn't mean it should be geminated. In the Polish loanwoard Ďďovnyca, or earthworm, the two ‹d›'s (dʒ), are pronounced. Gemination is triggered by two things: double consonants, and an accute accent. It does not matter if pronunciation already falls on the vowel, an acute is added to the vowel before the double consonants to produce gemination. Thus, double consonants that are word initial are always pronounced. Note: gemination occurs in the locative for the first declensions: *''Afkra'' ⟶ Áffkrena / Áffkreňa *''Šuska ⟶ ''Šússkena / Šússkeňa *''Arebyna ⟶ ''Arebýnnena, Arebýnneňa Phonetic Mutations Palatalization Palatalization in Adwan is tricky, as it is not shown in written speech whether a letter that precedes a ‹j› is to be palatalized or not. Vowels are never palatalized, as palatalization only ever happens to consonants. Most of the time, consonants are always palatalized if they precede a /j/. For example: In the word Skjorta (booth), the /k/ is palatalized to /kʲ/, which merges the sound of /k/ with /j/ to form one syllable. The /k/ in skjorta is palatalized because it precedes a /j/. It should be noted that /j/ doesn't palatalize consonants (technically, it would if it ended a word that has a penultimate letter as a consonant, by ‹j› never ends a word in Adwan), and in some dialects goes from /j/ to /ʝ/ (a stronger form of /j/). /J/ is only ever pronounced fully as /j/ when it begins a word. Note: /ɬ/, /w/, /ɥ/, /ʔ/, /l/, /r/, and occasionally /ð/ and /θ/ are never palatalized. Aspirative Lenition Aspirative Lenition in Adwan isn't seen as much as Palatalization, or other phonetic mutations, though it is seen extensively in the second strong declension. Essentially, an aspirative consonant breaks diphthongs and vowels in to two. This process is used to indicate plural. Essentially, the vowel is split in half with an aspirative consonant, an ‹h›, in the middle. • Aì → Ahy (note, the "i" lengthens to a "y") • Eì → Ehy • Aù → Ahu • Eù → Ehu • Où → Ohu Etc. However, even single vowels have aspirative lenition. • A → Aha • E → Ehe • O → Oho • U → Uhu • Y → Yhy And of course, there are irregular vowels. Note, only one irregular vowel actually goes through aspirative lenition, while two other ones follow an equally odd form of palatalization. • I → Yje • Ö → Uho • Ü → Uje Consonant Mutation Consonants in Adwan tend to change, though not in the sense where they simple change to fit with pronunciation. Many times, the changes of consonants will happen in declensions, where the changing of a consonant signifies a change in number, though there are -- quite commonly, actually -- in common names, places and associations, consonant mutations. Most of the time, consonant mutations follow a set of phonetic rules that make sense, though there are still times where the changes are arbitrary. These irregular consonants are seldom, though they still exist in Adwan. Example of regular consonant mutation: In the genitive of the second weak declension, the singular declension of the noun mör (sea) becomes möres, though when changing to plural, -s becomes -z, therefore transforming möres to mörez. In the ablative of the fourth weak declension, the singular declension of the noun chiðaùm (person) becomes chiðaùmysc, though when changing to plural, ''-sc'' change to šč, therefore leaving the word to be chiðaùmyšč. There is no exact rule governing what consonants mutate to, though generally they become voiced if unvoiced, and become unvoiced it voiced; also, however, these rules may not be followed, as in some instances, s'' will become ''z, and in others, s'' will become ''š, and even þ. Consonants also change in conjugations in Adwan to represent number. S'' becomes ''š, c'' becomes ''č, and z'' becomes ''ž in Adwanic verbs. *''Łorac'' refers to the first person singular, while łorač refers to the first person plural. Ablaut Abalut in Adwan is the mutation of vowels. Vowels in Adwan go through change, mainly to indicate number change. This is seen in demonstratives and noun declensions, where vowels change to change case and or number. *The nominative proximal demonstrative Þyd becomes Þud when becoming plural. *The distal demonstrative Jot goes through 6 ablauts, one for each case, therefore Jot changes to Jyt for the genitive, Jöt for the accusative, etc, etc. Ablaut is imperative to conjugations in Adwan, where, unlike noun and determiner inflections where the rule for ablaut is unspecified, nouns take a special person. *''A'' is associated with the first person, while u'' is to second person, ''y, e, ''and ''o are to third person (neuter, masculine and feminine, respectively), and i'' to fourth person indefinite. #''Mož'a's ''refers to the first person, while ''mož'u's'' refers to the second person. Nasalization Nasalization is vital to Adwan, for it expresses a change in number in many declensions. For all of the first declension, vowels are nasalized to show the nouns being plural. The velar nasal consonant represents nasalization to vowels -- as it's only ever found near vowels -- ‹ň›, though many times the velar nasal is only merged with the vowel. • Afkra → Afkraň While a velar nasal is added to the word to pluralize, sometimes the velar nasal disappears in return for nasalization of the vowel. However, even if a velar nasal is still pronounced, vowels are still considered to go through nasalization due to the organized nasalization they all go through for number change. Thus, with nasalization, afkraň, afkraŋ can become afkrã. Gemination Gemination occurs in Adwan mainly in case changes and names. Adwan doesn't geminate too many consonants, though it is exclusive to the locative first strong declension. However, there are specific rules. For a consonant to be geminated, the syllable before it must be stressed and represented with an acute -- or double accute -- accent. *Geminized: Ánna = an:a *Not-Geminized: Anna = anna. Note: A geminized ‹CH› does not repeat ‹ch›, but merely adds an ‹h› to it, therefore it would be Káchha, not Káchcha. Káchha = rock. Glottalization Glottalization in Adwan is neither phonemic nor is it a technical part of Adwanic speech. For the most part, glottalization of consonants and vowels in Adwan varies in many dialects; where many forme penthesis and elongate adjacent vowels, others cut them up and glottalize them. However, there is one universal glottal rule that isn't shown in the orthography. In prepositions such as ''s, þ and v'', a glottal stop follows these consonants to stop them from completely joining the next word. It is common, however, to hear prepositions be glottalized. Syntax & Morphology Adwan is an inflecting language, where many words change their form depending on their function in a sentence. This may pose a problem for many English speakers, Chinese speakers, or other speakers of analytical languages, for analytical languages depend on word order to convey their meaning, as opposed to morphology. Adwan, as an inflecting language, inflects verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numbers, and determiners depending on their function in a sentence, or their ''case (or person, mood, voice, tense and aspect, for verbs). Word Order Because of the inflections that go on in Adwan, word order is generally a lot freer than it would be if it didn't have all those inflections. Adwan generally follows an SVO word order, though many word orders are feasible depending on the mood or emphasis they want to put on the sentence. Many times, word order can change voice and mood to words without actually changing the mood or voice. In the OVS order, the verb should be in the passive voice, but because of the word order, the passive voice is not needed. It is, however, much more common and easier to follow a generic SVO order and use morphology to change meaning, rather than word order. Cases Adwan has seven cases to which decline its nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numbers and determiners. They are the nominative, the genitive, the accusative, the dative, the ablative, the locative and the vocative. The Nominative and the Accusative are subject-object cases. No prepositions govern either case; the verb distinguishes the subject and the direct object; in the phrase Paul eats apples, "Paul" is in the nominative, and "apples" is in the accusative. Nothing ever stands in the way between a nominative and an accusative case, other than the verb, theoretically. The Genitive case is the case of posession and relation. Since Adwan's ratio of adjectives is low compared to its nouns and verbs, many nouns act as adjectives when used in the genitive. In the phrase The dog house, when compound word usage is not preferred, the genitive case is used, in which the phrase would then mean The house of dogs, in which "dogs" would be in the genitive. the genitive is ideally the "of" case; posessors always follow the nouns, rather than the nouns following their posessors like in other languages. In the girl's cat, the girl is the posessor and comes before the cat; however, in Adwan, the girl comes after the cat, because a possessive noun is like saying "of a/the". Therefore, the girl's cat would be the cat of the girl. Note: Irregular prepositions govern the Genitive case, but since there are only a few, the genitive doesn't qualify as a prepositional case. The Dative, Ablative and the Locative 'cases are prepositional cases in Adwan; these are the three cases which are governed by prepositions. Many prepositions are alike and must therefore have a distinction to their usage, which is why the three cases come in. The Dative case refers to the indirect object as a recipent of the verb; the ablative case refers to the indirect object as the causative noun, and the locative case refers to the indirect object as a locational noun. *The ablative case is the most isolated of these three, as its usage differes from the dative and locative. It is the case of instrument and cause, therefore in the phrase ''Paul eats apples with a fork, "fork" would be in the ablative. *The dative case and the locative case share many prepositional uses, but establish a line of distinction when it comes to their usage. The locative case uses prepositions of direction and of location, while the dative uses the same prepositions but doesn't refer to location or direction. In the phrase I'm going to the store, the "store" is in the locative, because "to" refers to a place; however, in the phrase I gave an apple to my mom, "mom" would be in the dative, because it is a recipent of an action. Many times, it is easy to distinguish which preposition and case to use by seeing their usage. If it's not instrument, or location, it's in the dative, most likely. 'The Vocative '''case refers to a dialogue case, used when addressing someone in specific. It is the least complicated of the cases, and only ever used in day to day dialogue, rather than writing (though it does occur a lot in writing with dialogues). In the phrase ''Hey, Paul!, "Paul" is in the vocative, because it is being adressed. Prepositions Prepositions in Adwan govern three cases; the dative, the ablative, and the locative. Each preposition is assigned to only one case, as there is no amiguity, however, many prepositions are copulas of eachother (such as v'' and ''ef, which both mean "in" but describe different situations. Prepositions are special features to Adwan, as each preposition is specific in one form or another. Rather unlike its European counterparts, prepositions in Adwan rarely ever have double meanings. Below is a list of all prepositions used in Adwan, listed under their respective cases *'''Dative #At - Ła #Compared to - Deìnaìpora #For - Y #Than - Kö #''To - Šču*'' #Toward - Aì *'Ablative' #About - Ðö #According to - Voch #After - Ďeňkwy #Against - Seď #Among - Kaìch #As opposed to - Vsorysjonšču #Because of - Oďy #Before - Kpy #By - Her #Concerning - Ğaù #Despite - Or #During - Kureùň #''From - Žeìň*'' #In - V #Like - Som #On - S #On behalf of - Def #Regarding - Jar #Since - Jeùr #Until - Ďeù #Versus - Raùch #Via - Sery #With - Zuþ #Without - Saþ *'Locative' #Across - Tra #Against - Des #Around - Naìsle #''At - Er*'' #Behind - Chva #Between - Þ #By - Ièt #From - Ďa #In - Ef #In front of - Jeg #Into - Šlaù #Near - Per #Next to - Vel #On - Ü #Outside of - Daùr #Over - Chu #To - Al #Under - Och *'Genitive' #Ago - Doň; used prepositionally, rather than postposionally in English. Three years ago in Adwan would be Doň jaìsar nyhy, or Ago of three years. Italicized prepositions are default prepositions for the respective case; therefore, a case without a preposition is automatically assumed to be that preposition. Declensions: Nouns & Adjectives Nouns, Adjectives, and Numbers, for the most part, follow the same declensions, more or less. Other than irregular nouns, and adjectives, every declinable part of speech (except for many pronouns!) follow the same declensions. Note: Gender does now specifically own a declension, but rather has a special affix that changes gender; adding -š or -eš will make a noun masculine, while adding -č or -oč will make the noun feminine. All nouns come in neuter form, except for slang terms and informal terms that are gender specific. While nouns can technically be declined into gender, it must be known that inanimate nouns can NOT be declined for gender, for it is culturally sexist and incorrect. Šlyna can be šlynač or šlynaš, since it means child, and a child can be generally unspecified, masculine or feminine. Parm, however, cannot be correctly declined to parmeš or parmoč, for a road cannot be feminine or masculine (note, feminine and masculine declensions are still given for said noun, but they are only for demonstration.) More on Gender... Adwan indeed does decline to gender -- three genders, as a matter of face; Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. However, gender in Adwan is anything but arbitrary. All nouns in Adwan are by default neuter. All inanimate nouns can only be neuter, while animate nouns can have all three genders. A noun is only declined as a feminine noun if the noun is literally a woman, or carries an essence of feminism; same for the masculine nouns. Examples of nouns that under go masculine and feminine declensions are nouns such as: *Šlyna, "child"; can be šlynaš, "boy", or šlynač, "girl". *Fevna, "parent"; can be fevnaš, "father", or fevnač, "mother". *Martyn, "fox"; can be martyneš, "male fox", or martynoč, "female fox". To change a noun's gender, a gender prefix must be added to the already-declined noun. Masculine: -š, or -eš Feminine: -č, or -oč Apart from Gender, Adwan also declines its nouns according to number. The number system in Adwan is quite simple, as things are declined as to whether they're singular, or plural. Singular denotes the amount being of only one quantity, while plural denotes it to be of more than one quantity. Noun or Adjective? Adwan doesn't have separate declensions for adjectives, like some languages such as Czech and Polish, but rather, an adjective is declined as if it would be a noun, and vice versa. With this, many adjectives can act as nouns if they were to be standalone parts of speeches, for example: délla could mean either "good" or "the good". However, there are adjectives that are purely predicates and therefore cannot stand as nouns, such as the adjective featured, as opposed to its noun counterpart'', feature''. In parts of speeches that vary with type of speech, the noun usually carries the affix -na, -čna, -ana, -yna, etc. Due to case inflections, adjectives have no exact positioning in Adwan, though it is preferred that adjectives follow the nouns; therefore, in a phrase like the red apple, the phrasing would be reworded to be the apple red. However, as stated, word order is not too strict and only follows these rules for convenience. Strong Declensions Strong declensions consist of nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech that are declined that end in vowels or go through a system of ablaut to decline. Adwan only has three strong declensions, but parts of speech in the first and second strong declensions are the most abundant parts of speech in Adwan. First Declension *Note: Look at the "Orthography" and read on Gemination for an explanation on the locative. Šlyna = Child; Second Declension Bre = Adult Third Declension The first declension deals with words that end in -és, -ér, and -éż, which are typically adjectives. Motér = Strange Weak Declensions Declensions shown below mainly consist of suffixes and infixes. First Declension The third declension deals with all nouns ending in -ch, -g, -s, and -z. Feaz = Tourist Second Declension The fourth declension deals with all nouns ending in -ď, -l, -r, and -ž. Maìr = Mayor Third Declension The fifth declension deals with all nouns ending in -c, -ð, -t, and -ż. Kaùleð = Hiker Fourth Declension The sixth declension deals with all nouns ending in -n, -k, -f, and -v. Marin = Sailor Fifth Declension The seventh declension deals with all nouns ending in -d, -ğ, -m, and -þ. Parm = Road Personal Pronouns Interrogative Pronouns Relative Pronouns Demonstratives Numbers Verbs Verbs in Adwan are the most complex part of speech in Adwan due to their agglutinative nature. Rather than change endings to change mood, tense, aspect, person and number, Adwan employs a number of affixes to change such things. The only thing resembling fusional conjugation in verbs are the conjugations per person, which change per conjugation. Adwan has three conjugations; verbs ending in -an, verbs ending in -en, and verbs ending in -on. Person Adwan conjugates to 4 persons, with the 3rd person having an additional 3 genders, thus having a total of 6 persons total. Below is a table for the conjugation for each type of verb and for each person. NOTE: The nominative pronoun is NEVER used in general sentences, as the person is conjugated right into the verb. The nominative pronoun, however, does double as an oblique case, and, when used with a general pause and a comma, does not come off as redundant. Nominative pronouns are only used in oblique usages and when to emphasize certain things. In Adwan, the first step (and probably only step depending on the context) of conjugating a verb is conjugating it for its person. In Adwan, rather than changing verb endings for each tense, aspect, voice and mood, affixes are added to the conjugated verb. Tense & Aspect Tense and Aspect come off as merged in Adwan, for there is no separate affix for each tense and each aspect, but rather, the combination of Tense and Aspect produce one affix (past perfective has the affix ''-je-'', while the past imperfective has the affix ''-eży-''). Adwan is a language rich with tense and aspect. There are three tenses (past, present and future), and three aspects (perfective, perfect, and imperfective). Tense alone, however, is not enough to express what is going with the actions, therefore, Aspects are employed (and merged with tenses) to change the aspect of the verb. Compare ate with had eaten, etc. Below is a table with the respective affixes for each combination. NOTE: -Ø- means no affix is added. Mood Voice Polarity Adverbs Particles Question Particle A trait shared by many languages, Adwan also features the use of an interrogative particle. Not exactly asking where, when, or why, the interrogative particle acts much like the French particle est-ce and the English particle do. The particle, Je, is introduced at the beggining of the question. Note the usage in the dialogue below. Fatryna: Je možus daì afkruň? Paùl: Žádu! Možas daì afkruň. Þaùras ğorju kony! Fatryna: Jot þyþ šwéllyn. Aùň je tu daì al šússkena? '' '''Paùl:' ''Tacha. Tornaìvas joù. '' '''Fatryna: Pólla tornaìvus?'' Paùl: Pyvloti... pyvloti aìrany. '' '''Fatryna:' Á...ďuný, dwatas. Paùl: Žaùde. Ďeù jéchhena! Notice that the particle je is used mainly in yes or no questions. Of course, question asking is not only limited to particles, as interrogative pronouns are also used extensively when asking questions. Below is a translation of the conversation above. Fatryna: Do you still eat apples? Paùl: Of course! I still eat apples. I like them alot! Fatryna: That's good. And do you still go to school? '' '''Paùl:' No, unfortunately. I work now. '' '''Fatryna:' Where do you work? Paùl: A bookstore... Aìrany's bookstore. '' '''Fatryna:' Ah... well, I should go. Paùl: Me too. Bye! Conunctions Category:Languages